Until the Crowd Steps Back
by ivyspinners
Summary: In laughter; in silence. Two very different nights in Summersea among siblings.
Originally written for frangipani_flowers for Yuletide 2015.

* * *

The corner of Glass Hall and Quartz Street opened to a spacious square, bordered by a knee-high brick wall. For three evenings each year, it hosted Midsummer festivals for most of Summersea. At dusk, lanterns flicked to life one by one, and tumblers, dancers, and musicians flooded in like a stream of gaudy butterflies. The entire square frothed with mage-lights and streamers, stalls and shouting children; a riot of colour.

Sandry found an empty space along the wall, not far from where dancers would soon begin to set up. It was good to be _home_ , to breathe in that indefinable sense of Summersea, to walk the streets without crowds parting in her wake. It was better still that her siblings were here too. She didn't even mind the two guards who'd fallen into step behind her when she left the Duke's Citadel; Oama and Kweben were friends as much as anything else.

Tris had peeled off ten minutes earlier, Chime curled around her neck, a very animated Glaki tugging her by the hand to inspect what seemed like each and every stall. There were, judging by impressions of exasperation and affection that whispered down the bond, a _lot_ of stalls.

 _Is she enjoying herself?_ Sandry asked.

Tris let Sandry look through her eyes. They'd stopped at the eastern wall, beside an array of blown glass shaped like delicate vines and fruit. Glaki had to stand on tip-toes to see over the counter. Her eyes were huge, her mouth shaping an 'O'.

Chime shifted on Tris's neck, peeking out from behind her braids with obvious fascination. Possibly, Tris seemed to think, _too_ much fascination, because she said, "Eat anything and the stall owners will chase you with brooms. Glass dragon or not."

Chime's response was a series of soft, indignant screeches. It drew the stall owner's attention, much to Tris's dismay; but rather than exclaim with surprise, the man nudged a small pot of emerald-green powder forward. Chime's purr rippled through the air as she swooped onto the stall and thrust her muzzle into the pot.

Sandry smothered a laugh, feeling Tris's exasperation press against her skin. It was all Tris could do not to throw her hands up.

 _She'll want to come back every day, now,_ Tris sighed. _**Both**_ _of them._

 _Your glare would scare anyone else into obeying,_ Sandry answered, _but I think we all picked very stubborn students._ She'd met Evvy only once before the trip to Namorn, but the one meeting had underscored this clearly enough.

Attention back in her own body, Sandry looked in Tris's direction. The crowd stirred, but didn't shift; people close by were craning their heads to look, Sandry thought, but no one was pushing. Half way between Tris and Sandry, a father with a small child perched on his shoulders tried to turn, only to have the child tug on his hair and jerk a hand forward; it seemed the pair of jesters, doing their best imitation of a mage student who'd decided to try alcohol and his unfortunate best friend being pinched by invisible hands, were more important.

A familiar name caught her attention. It wasn't very courteous to eavesdrop, but Sandry couldn't help it, she strained to catch the rest of the conversation. It wasn't easy in the ambient noise.

"She wouldn't really come _here_ , would she? Not when Emerald Triangle's got a parade of its own." It was a man standing perhaps five feet away, just visible at the corner of her eye. He spoke with a Namornese accent.

A nearby Provost's Guard, who looked like she'd just finished her duties for the day, nodded at the dancers. She seemed somehow familiar. "See there? The boy at the centre? That's Pasco Accalon, Lady Sandrilene's student. She'll come watch him."

The first person shook his head. "Since when do nobles take students?"

The guard eyed him with amusement. "You're not from around here, are you?"

"To hear that a fa Toren would mingle with the likes of us? I'd sooner believe she really did spin four magics together, or keep His Grace alive, that she can walk through crowds like ghosts and destroy pirate fleets." Apparently, the Namornese man had a flair for the dramatic.

The guard's lips twitched. "She'll be here."

"I suppose we'll know either way," the first person said doubtfully. "She can hardly stay unnoticed."

Five feet away, unnoticed, Sandry was trying not to laugh.

 _I think we've been demoted,_ Briar said. He stood before a stall housing wheat and barley seedlings, and had been drawn by Sandry's mirth rippling down their bond. _Not even worth a mention._

Daja, sitting beside Sandry, had caught the conversation first-hand. Now she shook her head. _It's why no one's giving us a second glance._

 _Speak for yourself_ , Briar retorted. Curious, Sandry shifted to look through him, and felt half a dozen unimpressed pairs of eyes (and a dozen impressed ones) on him. Briar had stuffed both hands into his pockets and wasn't walking with any particular swagger, but harriers watched him as he walked by. Briar's reaction was dismay. He'd thought a few years would make him hide better. Apparently not.

Briar sent her an imagined picture of himself walking up behind Sandry to tug on one of her braids, as though they were kids. In his mind, both of Sandry's guards pushed off their ledges, faces set on murder; the harrier Sandry had heard speaking before rounded on him for insolence. For some reason, Sandry noticed, in Briar's imagination, she and Daja merely watched.

Daja snorted, and added her own contribution: Sandry standing to her unimpressive full height and looking down her nose at the harrier, Daja's fingers tightening briefly on her staff.

 _Thanks ever so_ , Sandry said sourly, watching the scene unfold in her mind; she wasn't _that_ short, was she?

With a shrug, Briar let the image collapse.

Little Bear had decided to stay with Sandry and Daja while the other two roamed. Now he bumped his head against Sandry's knee, whining for attention. Steady as the dog usually was, he'd been obviously - and rather enthusiastically - overjoyed when the siblings had returned from Namorn, and they were finally together again.

Daja looked down at him. "We probably wouldn't have to raise a hand. Little Bear wouldn't like it if anyone came after Briar." And, generally speaking, people didn't like Little Bear when the dog decided he didn't like _them_.

Laughing, Sandry slid down from the wall and threw her arms around him. Ahead, the students of Yazmin Hebet's school began to dance.

* * *

ii.

Tris climbed the stairs, growing angrier and angrier as they never seemed to end. Shurri Firesword curse them. She could see the banners just beyond the final step, but despite her efforts, it never seemed to grow closer.

Her mouth set, she struggled on, trying to ignore the discomfort beginning to gnaw in her mind. A faint breeze drifted by, and it was like ice on the nape of her neck, raising goosebumps on her arms. Somewhere in the distance, heavy temple bells tolled, splitting the air with sounds almost too deep to be musical. They made her teeth vibrate.

 _I'm safe. Home, and safe,_ Tris tried to tell herself. And yet...

She took the final step, and the floor was sliding out from under her. She tried to turn, but she couldn't move; her arms screamed as she struggled to raise them, but it was useless, the steps racing to slap her face-

She woke with a shudder, heart trying to beat out of her chest. Her ribcage ached with each stuttering breath. Phantom pain, she told herself, sitting up, trying to keep her fingers from shaking; her shoulder screamed, then relented.

Sweat poured down her forehead and soaked through her nightgown; her room was cool and stifling all at once, windless though the shutters were open. Unable to stand it, Tris left her bed and went up to the roof, shuddering with each step. The bottom of the stairs seemed a long way away.

Then the cloudless night opened around her: the sky heavy blue-back with a careless scatter of stars, the moon a faint curve that made shadows spill into one another; and her feet were steady on the rooftop. The air was still like death, but Tris didn't summon a breeze; not yet. She wasn't sure she could stand more sights than the indistinct impressions in front of her face, more voices and sounds than her own breath.

It took Tris a long time to realise she had company.

"Stop that," said Briar's voice from somewhere behind a small mountain of pots and saucers, making her jump. "The breeze was nice before you chased it away."

Tris's indignation fought with her shaking fingers, and briefly won. "I did no such thing, but it would serve you right for lurking and scaring respectable folk."

" _Tris,_ " he said, a plaintive entreaty.

Taking a moment to compose herself, Tris nodded and reached outwards. Air touched her mind; patches that were still, patches being driven into motion. Tris guided those breezes through the streets until they reached the rooftop, spinning excitedly around Tris in a wave of chatter. It was late, but Summersea was not entirely, it seemed, sleeping.

They stayed like that for some time, Tris standing in the open air as the wind gathered in the folds of her clothing, Briar behind the mountain of pots. As her eyes adjusted, the protective spells gathered in the corners of the house became another source of silver-white illumination. Wind raced past Briar, and brought the image to her eyes: he'd placed, in a messy circle around him, not empty pots but ones packed with dirt and mud, the ones where seedlings were bursting into life.

Tris couldn't sense anything from Briar. He'd closed the bond tight, or she had.

 _Tris?_ It was Sandry, voice bleary with sleep, but Tris thought she could sense Daja listening, too.

 _I'm fine._ Tris shook her head, and closed the connection with a snap. She didn't want any hint of her nightmare to bleed through and disturb them.

"It's a hideous hour to be awake," Briar said.

Tris turned around and raised an eyebrow, trusting that he could see it in the light of the protective spells.

Briar shrugged. "Nightmare." There was a hesitation. "It was the first time there were stairs in the war, Coppercurls. That part didn't come from me."

Tris wanted to give another sharp answer, but words deserted her. She wasn't sure how to explain: that the pain was gone, mostly, but sometimes it wasn't, and sometimes there were dreams she was on the stairs again, and sometimes she had both.

Before Briar could say anything, there were footsteps from below - loud and obvious - and the trapdoor to the roof opened. It was Daja, looking a little sleepy-eyed.

"I told Sandry to go back to sleep," Daja said in explanation, and shrugged, as if it say that had been that. She looked at Tris, uncertain, and then at Briar.

"It's how she stays a morning person," Tris said.

Daja seemed to take this as encouragement. She climbed the rest of the way to the roof, and took a seat by the edge. Spell-light picked out her limbs, her hands, how she'd pressed fingers on a faint scar in the space between living metal; Tris had one in the exact same space.

Tris waited for her to say something, for Briar to, but both of them were quiet except for the soft sound of breathing. They weren't even watching her, seemed content just to be there.

Tris closed her eyes, concentrating on the wind.

The push and pull of water; chains creaking; the wind itself, whispering through the streets and through piles of leaves, up past half-shuttered windows, over the warmth of the harbour and towards the horizon. The shape of waves swelling against ship hulls, withdrawing, under the tug of the moon.

The air was warm and clean in her lungs. She breathed in. Out.

* * *

fin.


End file.
